It finally arrived! After a year of waiting for production to begin, bugs in beta testing to be worked through… I finally have a Anytone AT-D578UV PRO in daily use. Simply put, it’s AWESOME!
I know. You are probably thinking that I’m just overwhelmed with actually having a radio that has been hyped up for so long, but here’s the truth; it works just like the hype said.
It is a complete Dual Mode (Analog/DMR) Tri-Band Radio (144/220/440) that is build well and doesn’t have any glaring issues that I have come across… “yet”.
I was immediately impressed with how heavy the box was. This was an early sign of high-quality manufacturing to me, even before opening the cardboard packaging lid. I said to myself, “Wow this thing is heavy!” I knew right away it was built like a tank and had a good heat sink.
All around this radio screams QUALITY. Here is a quick list of awesomeness:
- Great microphone. It’s physically heavy. Typical of a Moto-style mic. There is a full feature of buttons that feel good to press. Built-in mic speaker, if you’re into that sort of thing, that you can turn on/off via software or menu. Basically, you can run the whole radio from the microphone if you so choose.
- As mentioned before, the radio is solid. It has a huge heat sink design and a rear-mounted fan, which can be activated by one of three modes ptt/temperature/ or both. This baby is never going to get hot.
- The display is bright and easy to read the main info like channel name etc.
- The audio is loud and clear. The internal speaker is really decent for it’s size and does have some bass character that most tiny speakers are lacking.
- The rubber buttons on the front panel of the radio body are of a good size and have a really nice click to the button press. All button functions are programmable via software to your liking.
- The volume twist knobs are smooth and just sticky enough that I’m not worried about bumping them accidentally.
- The channel knob is stiff and has a clearly distinctive click during rotation.
- The CPS software is just like the 868 and 878. So if you are familiar with those, you are ahead of the game. If you are not, then just assume the CPS software is typical for a DMR radio.
- The USB programming port is conveniently located on the front left-side of the radio, so it’s easy to access.
The only TINY cons that I noticed were the following:
- When you power on the radio and it goes through it’s BOOT phase, the speaker on the hand mic makes an open squelch sound for a few hundred milliseconds, even though I have the speaker mic disabled in the programming. It’s not annoying or even loud, it’s just something I noticed and kind of thought… hmmm that’s weird.
- When you PTT, the speaker makes a small *pop* sound. Difficult to hear when installed in a vehicle and the motor is running, but quite noticeable otherwise.
- I’m not a huge fan of the A/B audio setup, but it’s workable. You have two volume knobs to adjust and a manual band-muting capability. So programming the custom buttons becomes a good solution. But it won’t automatically mute the sub-band if you are active on the opposite band. At least that I could see. If I’m wrong about this, please contact us. The manual isn’t at all clear about how this is supposed to work.
- The display is the same size as the Anytone HTs, so if you are big into looking at S-Meter readings… forget about that. You are SOL. When you install the radio mobile and it’s two feet away from your eyes, there are going to be a lot of blinky blobs on the screen that you can’t tell what they are, but like I said earlier, the important info is easy to read.
- The firmware update drop-down menu via CPS v1.03 doesn’t work. You have to navigate via Explorer to your hard-drive and click on the Firmware update executable to get it to launch. Not a huge thing and a small bug I’m sure will get fixed in the next CPS update.
Other than these minor gripes, the radio is still amazing and probably the BEST non-HF rig I have bought in my ham career. I’m not at all sorry for waiting for this. It is worth it!
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